Fluorinated hydrocarbons have many uses, one of which is as a cleaning agent or solvent. Cleaning agents are used, for example, to clean electronic circuit boards. Electronic components are soldered to circuit boards by coating the entire circuit side of the board with flux and thereafter passing the flux-coated board over preheaters and through molten solder. The flux cleans the conductive metal parts and promotes solder fusion, but leave residues on the circuit boards that must be removed with a cleaning agent.
Preferably, cleaning agents should have a low boiling point, nonflammability, low toxicity, and high solvency power so that flux and flux-residues can be removed without damaging the substrate being cleaned. Further, it is desirable that the cleaning agents be azeotropic or azeotrope-like so that they do not tend to fractionate upon boiling or evaporation. This behavior is desirable because if the cleaning agent were not azeotropic or azeotrope-like, the more volatile components of the cleaning agent would preferentially evaporate, and would result in a cleaning agent with a changed composition that may become flammable and that may have less-desirable solvency properties, such as lower rosin flux solvency and lower inertness toward the electrical components being cleaned. The azeotropic character is also desirable in vapor degreasing operations because the cleaning agent is generally redistilled and employed for final rinse cleaning.
Fluorinated hydrocarbons are also useful as blowing agents in the manufacture of close-cell polyurethane, phenolic and thermoplastic foams. Insulating foams depend on the use of blowing agents not only to foam the polymer, but more importantly for the low vapor thermal conductivity of the blowing agents, which is an important characteristic for insulation value.
Fluorinated hydrocarbons may also be used as refrigerants. In refrigeration applications, a refrigerant is often lost through leaks during operation through shaft seals, hose connections, solder joints, and broken lines. In addition, the refrigerant may be released to the atmosphere during maintenance procedures on refrigeration equipment. Accordingly, it is desirable to use refrigerants that are pure fluids or azeotropes as refrigerants. Some nonazeotropic blends of refrigerants may also be used, but they have the disadvantage of changing composition when a portion of the refrigerant charge is leaked or discharged to the atmosphere. Should these blends contain a flammable component, they could also become flammable due to the change in composition that occurs during the leakage of vapor from refrigeration equipment. Refrigerant equipment operation could also be adversely affected due to this change in composition and vapor pressure that results from fractionation.
Aerosol products employ both individual halocarbons and halocarbon blends as propellant vapor pressure attenuators in aerosol systems. Azeotropic mixtures, with their constant compositions and vapor pressures are useful as solvents and propellants in aerosols.
Azeotropic or azeotrope-like compositions are also useful as heat transfer media, gaseous dielectrics, fire extinguishing agents, power cycle working fluids such as for heat pumps, an inert medium for polymerization reactions, as a fluid for removing particulates from metal surfaces, and as a carrier fluid that may be used, for example, to place a fine film of lubricant on metal parts.
Azeotropic or azeotrope-like compositions are further useful as buffing abrasive detergents to remove buffing abrasive compounds from polished surfaces such as metal, as displacement drying agents for removing water such as from jewelry or metal parts, as resist-developers in conventional circuit manufacturing techniques employing chlorine-type developing agents, and as strippers for photoresists (for example, with the addition of a chlorohydrocarbon such as 1,1,1-trichloroethane or trichloroethylene).
Some of the fluorinated hydrocarbons that are currently used in these applications have been theoretically linked to depletion of the earth's ozone layer and to global warming. What is needed, therefore, are substitutes for fluorinated hydrocarbons that have low ozone depletion potentials and low global warming potentials.